Dharma Training

If we’re not developing our awareness in our everyday life, then we’re missing the point. ~ Ponlop Rinpoche

“I first came to this country when I was 14 with the 16th Karmapa, who brought me here as attendant, and who stayed for eight months. I went back with his holiness and continued monastic training. After I finished, I came back in early ‘90s and went to Columbia University for a while. Most of my family lives in New York. My guru Khenpo Rinpoche encouraged me to teach in this country and in the West, and I’ve followed his instructions. From a very young age, I had quite a strong connection with Western culture, and I was interested in learning more. It’s been a wonderful experience for me to be here…

I’ve learned a lot…we have a lot of similarities between Western academia and Eastern academia. At the same time there are big differences in terms of methodology and the approaches that we take. In our training in the East, teaching is mostly focused on an objective point of view, but here it is more subjective — how I feel and think — so there is a lot more subjective flavor here. Like for example the middle-way analysis of the Buddha’s teaching goes straight into analyzing atoms. It talks about objects, and goes directly to that kind of subject matter, and then analyzes that and talks about emptiness. But here (in the West) there’s more about analyzing my feelings and my own mind and my body, so a little bit different approach here…

We’ve been working very hard to have an organized, progressive path of study and mediation. This has been one of the best achievements of this sangha. We have a progressive study path, we have developed materials, we have developed classes, we have progressive meditation training and mindful activity, that has been a big change. I don’t know about other Buddhist schools here, but among our own Buddhist schools I don’t see that this often. We have copied the Western pedagogy of training as much as we can. We also have some classes online, and we have adapted to the internet and to computers…

For me it’s like a genuine science of mind. I really feel very intrigued and interested in exploring my own mind, my own thought and emotions, and what’s really there behind all this. Is there something more profound, and how do I handle on a day-to-day basis, habitual thoughts and habitual emotions? Dharma for me is a living entity, that not only helps me to entertain some spiritual thought of awakening or enlightenment, but also something that is very present in my day-to-day experience of my mind. Personally I feel dharma has a lot to contribute to our world, in this world of suffering, pain and chaos, with all these negative things going on…so we can have a loving, caring, responsible, and more genuine kind of community…

We all must maintain our own lineages, pure lineage teachings from all Buddhist traditions. In Theravada, Zen, Tibetan, we all can maintain our own integrity and genuineness, and follow our traditions. Yet at the same time, there has to be some kind of merging that must take place. We are all Buddhist practitioners at the end, we all study and practice Buddhist teachings…we must come together, especially in this country. We must resolve all these issues and go beyond territorial mentality and habitual clinging in that way. My idea is that at some point all those yanas and traditions of the Buddha’s teachings will merge into one melting pot in America. It’s already happening, with Theravada teachers getting pointing-out instructions, and Vajrayana Buddhists using Satipatthana and mindful activity. In a way it’s already merging. And at some point it may emerge as a genuine Buddhist tradition, which does not lose any integrity and guiding principles of the lineages…

My experience of the past 20-some years here, in many ways there is a genuinely higher-quality education in the West. Across the board, everyone is well educated, it’s different from our culture in the East. So therefore there is a much-better chance in terms of learning dharma, and progressing in intellectual study of dharma. At the same time, there also are different types of obstacles….there’s an intellectual obstacle, so much thinking, too much conceptualizing, and too many projections. I feel we face a different challenge in that way…the obstacles in each country and each culture very unique.

I think there is a very great opportunity to get awakened here in our Western culture and training, at the same time there are all these obstacles we have to encounter and transform. One of the things we experience here is sometimes we have a lack of patience. It is one of our big problems here. We are in a culture of instant gratification, everything is instant. We expect the same thing with spirituality, we want instant gratification, instant awakening. Sometime it doesn’t work that way. It takes a little time, a little effort, more practice, a little more sitting, a little more processing…

I hope that all the Buddhist groups in the America, starting with Northwest Dharma community, can celebrate one day together as a Buddhist holiday. Every religious group has one holiday, but we don’t have that. If we can have one day that is Vesak day…It can be the United Nations’ Vesak day. As a Tibetan, I don’t say it has to be the Tibetan day, let’s celebrate that day together, it doesn’t matter what we choose…If we can celebrate that day, that would be excellent…

I love that, there being one day together. The other thing is, I hope we can come together around another cause, which is helping sentient beings, especially where they’re struggling, where there are unfavorable conditions with natural calamities, a way the Buddhist community can come together with one effort…If all Northwest dharma people can come together and help. I think we have accomplished a lot in these 10 years. We have a lot of new members of communities using our facilities, and enjoying our classes and meditation instruction. We are extremely happy with that. I’m hoping in the future we can serve better our community here, and work together for the cause of establishing a genuine Western Buddhism or American Buddhism together, with the Theravada, Zen and Vajrayana traditions.”

~ Interview of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche by Steve Wilhelm, editor of Northwest Dharma News, and a former board president of Northwest Dharma Association. He practices with Seattle Insight Meditation Society and other groups, and contributes as a board member of Tibetan Nuns Project.

~ In 1979, the 16th Karmapa proclaimed Ponlop Rinpoche to be a heart son of the Gyalwang Karmapa and a holder of his Karma Kagyu lineage. In this way, Rinpoche came to hold the Kagyu lineage as well as the Nyingma lineage into which he was born. In addition to his being raised and trained by the Karmapa, Rinpoche’s formative years included studying intensively and receiving extensive lineage transmissions from some of the greatest Buddhist masters from Tibet’s final pre-exile generation: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche (chief Abbot of the Kagyu lineage), Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, his root guru.

Photo ~ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche during one of his many visits to Nepal to see his Guru, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche.